We decided to spend this day at Brugge. we met Julie at Brussels Midi (Brussels South) train station. We jumped in Julie’s car and headed an hour east towards Brugge. We parked the car at a train station on the outskirts of Brugge and headed in. Brugge is a beautiful town of 120thousand people surrounded by canals.the tow in approximately 2klm by 1.5km and is packed full of historic buildings and churches. We picked up a map from the Tourist Information office waited for the heavy rain to subside and then headed off. After looking at a church or two and some building from the outside we decided to get on a boat tour. For the next 30 minutes we cruised up and down the canals taking in the truly beautiful city and it’s main attractions.

View from our boat tour of Brugge

It started to rain as the boat tour finished and headed into a church to have a quick look around an wait for the rain to finish. We headed to a tour of a chocolate factory. It was quite interesting and concluded with a demonstration of making praline filled stars and delicious samples were distributed at the end of the tour. There was an irony in the tour and demonstration which was that all they do in Belgium is make the chocolate.the hard part of growing and drying the cocoa is done by lowly paid workers in south America.

Chocolate making in Brussels

After buying some chocolate at the post tour store we headed to the FrenchFry place for a tour. It seems that French fries were “discovered” by Belgians in the Mosene region. Di had heard about the tour from some friends in Sydney who reckoned that the french fries at the end were the best on earth. We did not have much time for the tour since the free French fries promised at the end of the tour closed in 20mins. The French Fry museum was a bit gimmicky but the fries at the end were pretty darn good. Having left the fresh fry tour we headed for the car.

French fires in the home of French Fries

It was raining again so we were pleased to make he car and sit in the dry and the warmth. Di bought a few groceries for the train trip the next day and we set off back for our motel. The day was remarkable not only for the beauty of Brugge which is probably the most beautiful town we have seen but also for the weather which changed at least once every 15 minutes and also for the back route to Waterloo which the sat nav system had selected as optimal to get back to our motel. We had a Chinese meal again for dinner and packed ready for our 5:30am start to the next day.